Opinion: Pollution denial begins

View in [Browser] | Add [nytdirect@nytimes.com] to your address book. Friday, December 16, 2016 [The New York Times] [NYTimes.com/Opinion »] [Opinion] Friday, December 16, 2016 Carbon pollution — the main source of global warming — doesn't cause only long-term damage. It also affects life today. Carbon emissions cause lung diseases that [kill thousands of people] a year. The emissions also reduce worker productivity. And the storms and droughts associated with climate change destroy houses, offices, roads and farmland. Add up all of these effects, which scientists and economists have done, and each ton of carbon dioxide costs society about $36. If anything, this number is conservative, because it was calculated before recent evidence of the accelerated effects of climate change. Whatever its imperfections, an estimate like this is important, because it can help government officials decide which environmental regulations make sense — and which would do more harm than good. The number allows for cost-benefit analysis, a staple of serious economic thinking. Conservatives, in fact, have generally been fans of cost-benefit analysis because they see it as a way to ground naive liberal thinking in reality. Which is why the attitudes that some Trump transition officials have toward cost-benefit analysis is so disturbing. Two leaked documents from the transition suggest that a Trump administration — presumably acting on behalf of energy companies— may scrap cost-benefit analysis of pollution and simply act as if pollution were harmless. “If that happens,” Michael Greenstone and Cass Sunstein write [in an Op-Ed] today, “it will defy law, science and economics.” Greenstone, of the University of Chicago, and Sunstein, of Harvard, helped design the government's current approach to cost-benefit analysis. Economists like to say that there is no such thing as a free lunch: Nearly every choice brings downsides, trade-offs and costs, even if those costs are obscured. There is certainly no such thing as free pollution, no matter what polluters may try to claim. The full Opinion report from The Times follows, including my old boss Bill Keller, who was a great executive editor of The Times, [on the prospects for criminal-justice reform]. David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist  ADVERTISEMENT  What’s at Stake [Jeffrey Bewkes, left, of Time Warner and Randall Stevenson, of AT&T, at a Senate hearing on proposed merger between the two companies.] [Expect a Cozy Trump-Telecom Alliance] By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The president-elect appears much less interested in preventing blockbuster mergers that limit competition than he was during the campaign.  Op-Ed Columnist [President-elect Donald J. Trump in Des Moines, Iowa, this month.] [Trump’s Chinese Foreign Policy] By ROGER COHEN The United States will be agnostic on human rights, freedom and democracy. Op-Ed Columnist [James Comey, the F.B.I. director, testified in September before a House panel about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.] [Useful Idiots Galore] By PAUL KRUGMAN Russia got lots of help in the United States hacking the election. Op-Ed Columnist [Donald Trump speaking to reporters last week in Ohio.] [To Understand Trump, Learn Russian] By ANDREW ROSENTHAL The language has two words for truth. It’s time for Americans to learn them. Contributing Op-Ed Writer [The Narcotic of Trump] By TIMOTHY EGAN He needs a jolt several times a day, and he gives it back to you. It’s a dangerous codependency.  Jennifer Heuer [Opinion] [Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?] By STEVEN LEVITSKY AND DANIEL ZIBLATT With norms weakening, past stability is no guarantee of our government’s future survival.  Editorial [A Brazen Power Grab in North Carolina] By THE EDITORIAL BOARD After losing the governorship, North Carolina Republicans are seeking to strip away the office’s power before a Democrat is sworn in. Editorial [Donald Trump on Wednesday, at Trump Tower.] [Enough Conflicts to Fill the White House] By THE EDITORIAL BOARD It doesn’t seem as if Donald Trump will ever give up his businesses.  Haejin Park [Op-Ed Contributors] [Donald Trump Should Know: This Is What Climate Change Costs Us] By MICHAEL GREENSTONE AND CASS R. SUNSTEIN The government can’t do its job if it refuses to measure the damage caused by carbon.  Op-Ed Contributor [A bi-partisan group of Senators held a press conference about criminal-justice reform legislation in April.] [Will 2017 Be the Year of Criminal Justice Reform?] By BILL KELLER With the election over, there will be a new impetus to change a costly system that over-criminalizes and over-punishes without making us safer. Op-Ed Contributor [Waiting for Uber rides at Los Angeles International Airport. Uber and the like describe themselves as “ride-sharing” companies, but critics call that public relations spin.] [The Whatchamacallit Economy] By STEVEN GREENHOUSE The sharing economy isn’t really about sharing. So what do we call it? Op-Ed Contributor [Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., this month.] [Dear America, Why Did You Let Us Down?] By LISA PRYOR To the rest of the world, the election of Donald Trump feels like a sudden plunge after a gradual decline. On Campus [On the campus of New York University Abu Dhabi. The failure of Georgetown and N.Y.U. to call out the suppression of critical speech suggests the complicity that gulf money buys.] [American Universities in a Gulf of Hypocrisy] By KRISTINA BOGOS By soft-pedaling criticism of their Qatari and Emirati paymasters, U.S. schools are compromising academic freedom. Op-Ed Contributor [Monitors showed President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela at the 10th anniversary of his weekly television show, “Alo Presidente,” in 2009.] [Will Democracy Survive Trump’s Populism? Latin America May Tell Us] By CARLOS DE LA TORRE The region shows how populist leaders make their own rules and undermine the democratic system.  Niv Bavarsky [Op-Ed Contributor] [Charlie Sykes on Where the Right Went Wrong] By CHARLES J. SYKES I’m a conservative, not a “Judas goat.” But that’s what a Trump supporter from the tribal bubble I helped create called me.  ADVERTISEMENT  Letters [Betsy DeVos at a rally last week in Michigan.] [Donald Trump’s Choices: Education] Former Senator Bill Frist says Betsy DeVos “is the trailblazer needed at the helm of federal education policy.” Two other readers offer their views.  From the Archives Contributing Op-Ed Writer [How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off] By ADAM GRANT Child prodigies rarely become adult geniuses who change the world. Originality is difficult to encourage but easy to thwart.  A NEW ELECTION PODCAST Listen to Opinion columnists and contributors on The Run-Up, a new podcast from The New York Times covering the final three months of the election. 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